‘Home Improvement’s’ “Haunting of Taylor House” Is the Best Halloween Sitcom Episode Ever

Who doesn’t love a good Halloween episode? Sitcom showrunners sure do love them, as they should. They give comedies an excuse to go all out, letting their characters wear ridiculous costumes and the storytellers indulge some of their spookiest urges. Plenty of shows have legendary Halloween chapters, like Roseanne and Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s annual frightfests. But of all the sitcoms out there with Halloween episodes, and there are a lot, there’s one that stands above all the rest: Home Improvement’s “The Haunting of Taylor House.”

Y’all can keep your Three-Hole Punch Jims, I prefer the show that celebrates the season in all of its horrific glory. You want pranks, outlandish costumes, and an incredibly elaborate home scare setup? This is the episode you turn to, accept no substi-spooks. Get it? Substitutes/substi-spooks? I try.

The reason “Haunting of Taylor House” is the pinnacle of sitcom scares is because it works as both a Halloween special and a great episode of a rock solid family sitcom. That’s because Halloween is a perfect fit for Home Improvement, way more than it is with most shows. Full House never had a great Halloween episode and Friends mostly stuck to Thanksgiving. But Home Improvement, a show focusing on tool-obsessed wiseacre Tim Taylor (Tim Allen)? You know Halloween is right up his alley. It’s so up his alley that he transforms the Taylor house basement into a cavern of cobwebs and ghouls (played by Al, Wilson, and Mark). Tim even gets to bust out a horror creation of his own, the mother-in-law from beyond the grave Nanastein.

You just know that at some point some exec somewhere tried to convince Allen of starring in a Nanastein feature film, and I maybe think our Halloweens are worse off for not having one?

But the Tim “The Ghoul Man” Taylor ain’t the star of this show. The soul of “The Haunting of Taylor House” belongs to Jill Taylor (Patricia Richardson) and her truly terrifying carrot costume.

A mix-up at the costume shop leaves Jill a nightmare in orange, and Richardson relishes every single moment she’s dressed as not-a-radish. She levels zingers at snotty kid Curtis, does an anxious “gotta pee” dance, and tries to maintain her motherly dignity while dressed as rabbit food. It’s the rare chance Richardson gets to show off her physical comedy skills, and it’s scary good.

The episode is even fun when you take off its Halloween mask and look at the plot: oldest kid Brad is put out when his girlfriend Jennifer shows up in a couples’ costume with another kid (a pre-Boy Meets World Rider Strong). The lesson of the week revolves around Brad learning how to treat someone he cares about with respect, a lesson imparted through Tim via Wilson, as usual. Of course Brad has to learn how to not talk to his girlfriend while dressed as Raggedy Andy, a hilariously humiliating costume choice.

Yeah, this plot could easily have taken place on any other day (Presidents’ Day, maybe?), but since it takes place on Halloween, the episode gets to revel in the very specific (but very real!) pain of having your couples’ costume turn into an embarrassing singles’ costume. I should know, since that’s happened to me twice (I lost both a Leia and a Scully).

This episode isn’t as f’ed up as Family Matters’ “Stevil,” and maybe you’re into something newer like Happy Endings. Whatever–for me, it doesn’t get any better than “The Haunting of Taylor House,” an episode that knows how to do some primo scaring while teaching a lesson about caring.

Stream Home Improvement "The Haunting of Taylor House" on Hulu